Next weekend, two buses will wind through the streets of Peterborough, marveling not only at the fall foliage but at another phenomenon: detached apartments.
The second annual tour of accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, in town will give the public an opportunity to view more than a dozen different buildings, plus walk around and through a few of them.
Danica Miller, Peterborough’s town planner, said the tour aims to educate attendees about regulations and processes related to building tiny homes and to promote the idea that more housing doesn’t have to detract from a neighborhood’s rural feel. The town’s Affordable Housing Committee kick-started the effort last year.
“We can share these with other communities to kind of show, you know, these really aren’t as big, bad and scary as they seem,” Miller said.
Peterborough has roughly two dozen detached apartments, she said, which can be listed as short-term rentals but are often used as in-law units for multigenerational households.
“What we’ve gathered from just about all of our ADU owners is that they’re either being used by family members … an older parent who wants to downsize from their single-family home and age in place, or they’re being rented for a little bit of income,” Miller said.
For decades, the town’s zoning ordinance has allowed these buildings “by right,” meaning developers don’t need a special exception from the local zoning board to build them.
That’s not the case everywhere, though more towns are heading in that direction — either by choice or by force.
A new state law requires towns to allow these tiny homes to be detached from the main house — a change some have vehemently opposed but others have pursued on their own. Since the law went into effect on July 1, some towns have already started updating their zoning codes to comply with the new rules.
Allowing detached apartments is one of many regulations aimed at cutting red tape for developers and increasing housing supply that passed through the state legislature this year, led by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers.
Some advocates, like the New Hampshire Municipal Association that represents the interests of towns and cities, opposed those changes, saying individual communities should decide what’s best for them.
Miller said she hopes Peterborough can serve as an example for other towns of what these zoning reforms can look like in surrounding communities.
“Adding these ADUs is a really excellent tool to gently infill more housing stock in a way that’s not really disruptive to the fabric of various neighborhoods in the community,” Miller said.
The tour is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 11 at 10 a.m. Tickets are free, but attendees are encouraged to reserve a seat on the bus ahead of time.